Elections in Berlin: The left is also booming in districts

The Left Party is not only the strongest force in the new House of Representatives and can possibly send its top candidate Elif Eralp to the Red City Hall as head of government - it also dominated the elections for the twelve district council assemblies (BVV). These 55-member committees will elect a mayor of the district in the next few weeks or months.

Eralp's party, which was unable to fill a single one of the twelve mayoral positions after the Berlin election in February 2023, will presumably have at least five district leaders in the future: in Mitte, Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, Pankow (all previously governed by the Greens), Treptow-Köpenick (previously SPD) and Lichtenberg (previously CDU). There is enough to have either a red-green, red-red or red-green-red majority in the BVV. In Pankow there would still be the mathematical possibility that the Greens, CDU, SPD and the small party Volt would join forces.

The Greens, who sent six mayors into office in 2023, only became the strongest force in Tempelhof-Schöneberg on Sunday. They could put two more district leaders above green-red-red counting communities - as coalitions are called at the district level - as is currently the case in Steglitz-Zehlendorf and Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, although there, as in 2023, they are only the second strongest force behind the CDU.

Two mayors are likely to come from the CDU, in Spandau and Reinickendorf. Without the Christian Democrats as the respective election winners, there will be no majority in the BVV beyond the AfD. The SPD, which previously provided the mayor in Treptow-Köpenick and Neukölln, is this time completely empty-handed when it comes to the district chief positions.

The mayoral election will be extremely difficult in two districts. In Neukölln, as in five other districts, the Left Party has become the strongest force. However, the SPD, which would need a majority, had already decided in advance not to elect the local Left Party's top candidate, Ahmed Abed, as mayor.

One reason is the accusation of anti-Semitic activities. According to RBB, the former Green Party member of the Bundestag and current President of the German-Israeli Society, Volker Beck, told the Jüdische Allgemeine at the beginning of the year: “Ahmed Abed does not stand for Palestine solidarity, but for the demonization of Israel.”

The situation in Marzahn-Hellersdorf is also difficult. The AfD performed best there on Sunday. In order to make the Left Party candidate the second strongest force mayor, the votes of the SPD and Greens, which are weak in this district, are not enough - the CDU would also have to join in. But this contradicts the incompatibility decision of the Christian Democrats against cooperation with the Left Party, decided at the federal party conference in 2018.